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<tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#8381de"><div class="skribetitle"><strong><big><big><big>1. gpExport - a Maya Exporter -- Introduction</big></big></big></strong></div><center>
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<tr><td align="left" valign="top" colspan="1"><strong>top:</strong></td><td align="right" valign="top" colspan="1"><a href="maya-export.html#gpExport---a-Maya-Exporter" class="inbound">gpExport - a Maya Exporter</a></td></tr>
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<tr bgcolor="#8381de"><th align="center" colspan="1"><font color="#ffffff"><strong>Introduction</strong></font></th></tr>
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 <tr><td valign="top" align="left">1</td><td colspan="4" width="100%"><a href="maya-export-1.html#Introduction">Introduction</a></td></tr>
 <tr><td valign="top" align="left">2</td><td colspan="4" width="100%"><a href="maya-export-2.html#Coding-styles-and-Conventions">Coding styles and Conventions</a></td></tr>
 <tr><td valign="top" align="left">3</td><td colspan="4" width="100%"><a href="maya-export-3.html#Interfacing-with-Maya">Interfacing with Maya</a></td></tr>
 <tr><td valign="top" align="left">4</td><td colspan="4" width="100%"><a href="maya-export-4.html#Extraction">Extraction</a></td></tr>
 <tr><td valign="top" align="left">5</td><td colspan="4" width="100%"><a href="maya-export-5.html#gpExport">gpExport</a></td></tr>
 <tr><td valign="top" align="left">6</td><td colspan="4" width="100%"><a href="maya-export-6.html#References">References</a></td></tr>
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<p>In 2002/2003 I worked at Wootsoft and participated in the
   creation of a MMORPG called &quot;Iritor&quot; (which unfortunately never got
   released). From time to time I had to work in the tools- and
   especially the Maya-plugins-area. As every game, we needed to
   extract the most basic information out of Maya:
   <ul class="itemize"><li>the mesh itself. This includes its name, the triangles and the
		  vertices with their positions, normals, skin-weights, UV-sets,
		  etc.</li>
<li>the skeleton: every animated mesh was bound to a skeleton.</li>
<li>the animation. We used skeleton- keyframe animation, and hence
		  needed the transformation of each skeleton at each
		  keyframe.</li>
</ul></p><p>As we already had a working solution <a href="#footnote-footnote1056"><sup><small>1</small></sup></a> a maya-exporter wasn't essential,
   but  we would have liked to have our own.</p><p>After some fruitless hours searching good documentation I
   finally came to the following discouraging conclusion: Writing an exporter
   for Maya doesn't seem very difficult, as long as you know how to do
   it. And: There's virtually no documentation on the net.</p><p>We therefore decided to stick with the old solution, and
   attack the exporter only once we had more time. Unexpectedly I did
   find this time: After one year at Wootsoft I returned to France to
   finish my last year of studies. There every student needed to work on a
   industrial project. I was allowed to do the exporter.</p><p>As I was really disappointed by the lack of documentation
   (be it well documented exporters, or tutorials) I emphasized the
   reusability of the exporter. This meant well documented code,
   pluggable code-parts, and a documentation. Eventhough Wootsoft
   unfortunately ceased to exist before I had finished the exporter, I
   continued working on it, and reached a satisfying result in the
   summer of 2004.</p><p>This document finishes my initial goal by providing the last
   missing part: a good documentation / tutorial. (well. At least I
   hope it's &quot;good&quot;;)</p><br><br>
<hr width='20%' size='2' align='left'>
<a name="footnote-footnote1056"><sup><small>1</small></sup></a>: We exported
   our models using MS's X-exporter, and then extracted the
   information out of the X-files.
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